Continental Drifter

A great white shark makes a 12,000-mile trek.

September 21, 2007

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|A great white traveled from Africa to Australia and back. Photo: James D. Watt/Seapics.com|
A great white shark named Nicole -after the Aussie actress, Nicole Kidman -just got back from a 12,000-mile trip, researchers say. The shark, which was tagged in November 2003, swam from Africa to Australia and back, making it the first proof of a link between the shark populations in the waters off the two continents. It took Nicole 99 days to swim from South Africa to Australia. Then, six months later, she was identified back off the coast of South Africa. Ram-n Bofil, one of the lead researchers in the study, said the news "is one of the most significant discoveries about white shark ecology," the Associated Press reported. "We might have to rewrite the life history of the fish."